


The Day The Flowers Took Flight

by Snowgrouse



Category: Thief of Bagdad (1940)
Genre: F/M, Flowers, Free Verse, Harems, Heroine/Villain, Magic, Magic-Users, Poetry, Romance, Sensuality, Supernatural romance, Wizards, Wooing, sorcery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 09:39:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19765540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snowgrouse/pseuds/Snowgrouse
Summary: Jaffar woos the Princess in her garden through his magics.***"Come, my sweet.Once again,I ask of thee:Wouldst thou be free?"He swirls about her skirts the wind,Carrying to her nostrils the scentOf the roses lost;And with it, a dreamOf flowers greater, more beautifulAnd more fragrantThat bloom underneathHis kingdom's stranger skies.And now, she answers his wind,No whisper of a shy maiden, this;But she declares her willWith the command of oneIn whose veins power flowsUpon whose limbs glistensThe golden sunlight of Farrah:Majesty."Yes."It is at onceA veil and a gauntlet dropped.





	The Day The Flowers Took Flight

**Author's Note:**

> A little bit of Jaffar/Princess poetry in free verse:3. I totally forgot I hadn't posted this here on Ao3 yet, so here you go!

A sea of butterflies  
With poppies' petals for wings  
A thousand flowers  
Suddenly taking flight from the field,

The splendour of a rose garden  
Its pinks and reds and whites  
Suddenly alighting, fluttering away:

The women of the harem  
Astonished, startled,  
All but one shrieking 'djinni!'  
And running away.

And within the pink evening clouds  
Smiles the shadow  
Of a great sorcerer  
At the lone princess  
Who is left there,  
Curiously now studying  
This rosebush queer:

It had, indeed, been her intelligence  
That he had first chosen her for  
From out of all these beauties  
To woo with his magic,  
His words, his wit.

In his chamber a hundred miles away,  
He now leans closer to his crystal  
His silks rustling in a duet with hers  
As she kneels beside the now-empty bush.

But, now--  
Soft!  
Another kind of rustling:  
That of leaves.

"Wouldst thou, too, my sweet,  
Be given wings?"

He now whispers to her  
Through branch and thorn and leaf  
A voice playful, light, sweet:

"Aye, my dearest beloved--"

And now, the voice echoes  
From all four walls of her garden  
Reminding her mercilessly  
Of the state of her imprisonment:

"Wouldst thou, too, not wish  
To so take to the skies, and be freed?"

She turns around,  
Staining her skirts with the grass  
Only the evening air  
Ruffling her black hair  
A lover's lingering caress  
As she sits there, considering  
Before she answers.

Shame flits across her face,  
Pudency;  
What if this is some rogue,  
Some stranger now tricking her  
Into confessions  
Of illicit fantasies,  
Dreams of harlotries?

He chuckles as he draws his fingertips  
Across her bare arm  
In his crystal;  
Her modesty all but fans  
The flames of his passion.

"It is no mortal man  
Asking thee this, my sweet;  
Thy secrets are safe with me  
As they always have been:  
Thy daydreams have I always cradled  
With the utmost care  
In the palm of my hand."

With this,  
Awaken in her remembrances  
Of such forbidden acts;  
Soft hands straying onto mounds  
Heated and wet  
When the other girls, the eunuchs  
Had not been looking:  
She draws her legs tighter together.

But now,  
She lifts her chin,  
With the pride of one  
Who has, for all her life,  
Known that she is to, one day,  
Become a queen.

\--Oh, if only she knew  
Of the worlds  
He means to have her rule over  
By his kingly side;  
Birds, animals, elements, djinn!--

"Come, my sweet.  
Once again,  
I ask of thee:  
Wouldst thou be free?"

He swirls about her skirts the wind,  
Carrying to her nostrils the scent  
Of the roses lost;  
And with it, a dream  
Of flowers greater, more beautiful  
And more fragrant  
That bloom underneath  
His kingdom's stranger skies.

And now, she answers his wind,  
No whisper of a shy maiden, this;  
But she declares her will  
With the command of one  
In whose veins power flows  
Upon whose limbs glistens  
The golden sunlight of Farrah:  
Majesty.

"Yes."

It is at once  
A veil and a gauntlet dropped.

"The voice of a magician,  
A great sorceress in the making,"  
He whispers to himself;  
For it is one's Will  
That is the most important,  
Most crucial tool  
Of the magician's art.

"Then, come with me,"  
He now whispers this by the leaves,  
Caresses this onto her skin by the air  
Kisses this onto her lips by the evening sun;  
"Come with me, my sweet,"  
Not only a request but a promise  
Of all her dreams fulfilled:  
"And I will show thee worlds,  
Treasures, powers, pleasures  
Unto mere mortals unknown;  
Aye, all this will I show thee;  
Come with me,  
Come with me,  
Come with me."

But now, in her eyes  
Swords drawn;  
Her tresses curl  
Like scorpion tails:  
She means to test him.

"So say all treacherous djinn  
Who women into their realms lure  
To but suck them dry of life  
After they've had their sport with them!"  
She now cries.

Oh, but he has to laugh,  
For even in this, her sudden resistance  
He takes great pleasure,  
A great pleasure indeed;  
For it portends a passion,  
A fervour  
With which she will kick at his back  
With her ankles  
Scratch at him with her nails  
In their conjugal bed

\--Later, later!--

He can barely contain his glee,  
And would not have this spell be undone  
By his own body's undoing!

He presses down with his hand  
The lust now tenting his robes  
And now channels that desire  
Into his voice,  
His elemental touches.

"By my life, my child,  
I this thee swear:  
Thou wouldst become my queen--  
And in this, greater  
Than any earthly one, indeed:  
For in the realm of magic  
It is Woman  
Who gives life to her man,  
She the one by whose force  
He lives, moves and breathes:  
Oh, a king may be the one  
Wielding power,  
But it is his queen  
Who is Power itself, she.

Indeed, I have sought thee  
Sought myself a mate  
For years, decades, centuries  
Nay, a lifetime have I sought thee:  
For all my power is incomplete,  
My kingdom only half a kingdom  
Without a queen.

Know, my beloved,  
That it is only  
When he is joined with his queen  
That a king is made king.

Mortals only know shadows of this truth  
When they speak of the earth as Woman  
Speak of magic cloaks of kingship,  
Of enfolding wings of Majesty,  
Of sacred rings, torques, haloes  
All these emblems of kingship  
But symbols of the womb: this  
All but the blind can see.

But I shan't speak more  
For some of these things  
Have shocked men out of their wits,  
Rendered them insane indeed;  
And those few men  
Who have gleaned these truths  
Have been as heretics slain, heed:  
Remember Hallaj."

She but sits still;  
Despite her horripilation  
Despite the pulse  
Now wildly fluttering  
Upon her throat  
She remains calm,  
Serene.

And within her eyes,  
Dawn:  
That of an understanding.  
Yet followed by a question:

"Why me?"

"Why indeed?"  
He laughs softly.  
"Is it not obvious?"  
He whispers, husky from his joy.  
"I have seen in thee  
A reflection  
Of my Self--  
Again, remember Hallaj!  
He who was so transpierced by God  
That when he said  
'There is nothing beneath my cloak  
That is not God'  
Men thought he claimed  
To God himself be:  
When he had but realised himself  
For a mirror  
In which the Almighty  
Contemplated Himself."

Now, his voice drops into a register so soft  
That should one overhear them  
They would but think it  
Two women conversing in soft, lilting tones;  
Or perhaps the princess playing  
With a cat, purring sweetly.

And like a cat,  
He now lays his soul at her feet  
Basking in the caress of her beauty  
Gazing upon her in adoration.

"And so it is that in thee  
I myself see.  
Oh, I have gazed upon many women  
In my search over the centuries,  
Many women indeed;  
But it is only in thy reflection  
That for the first time,  
I can clearly see.

Aye, never have I seen  
A mirror clearer  
Than that of thy soul, my sweet.

In thy play, in thy reading,  
In thy hunting, thy singing,  
Thy daydreaming  
Have I seen myself  
Seen I,  
Oh, eye to eye:

The games I love also,  
The books I cherish too,  
The sport in which I take delight;

My eyes filled with tears  
By the same songs of longing  
That thou singest to banish the loneliness  
Of thy bedchamber at night.

Wouldst thou not, then, know me?  
For through knowledge  
Of my shape and form  
Would come to thee  
An understanding of me:  
In the unfolding of my soul for thee  
In the yielding of my body to thee  
Wouldst thou  
But thyself reflected see."

"Enough!"  
She now cries;  
She now so heated  
Her hair sticks to her temples  
And her breasts heave so with her fury  
That they almost out of her jacket spill.

"Show yourself,  
Your true self--  
Enough of illusions!  
No more tricks,  
No more sleights-of-the-eye;  
Show me who you really are  
So that I might for mine own eyes see  
Whether you are speaking  
Truth or lie."

She rises to her feet elegant,  
A woman taller than most,  
As slim as a cypress,  
And just as unyielding  
To his words' wind:  
She demands actions  
To prove why she should now  
So uprooted be  
And planted into a new soil  
She knows nothing of.

The breeze stills;  
Her skirts no longer flutter  
And the sun pauses  
In his braiding of his beams into her hair.  
A lone poppy-butterfly alights upon the rosebush.

"Show yourself!"  
She cries, for one last time.

The butterfly unfurls  
Into two petals, ten, a hundred, a thousand,  
A thousand thousand, a myriad;  
Fluttering a sea of red,  
Now bursting into bloom  
A giant, teeming, scarlet inflorescence  
Before her eyes:  
An explosion of fragrance,  
A shower of petals  
Softly kissing her limbs  
As it falls about her a rain,  
As it floats,  
As it flutters,  
As it falls about her free:

Before her stands  
A bridegroom:  
He.

A splendour of white,  
In princely attire  
He smiles at her  
And in his eyes,  
The vertignious blue of  
Heaven,  
Heaven vast and wide.

She no longer can feel  
The earth beneath her feet:  
Her head spins,  
Her stomach lurches  
As she soars into the sky  
Of his eyes;

High, high,  
Her wings unfolding  
She is lifted,  
High, high  
Unto  
The vertignious blue of  
Heaven,  
Heaven vast and wide.

And still,  
The words echo  
From the four empty walls  
Of the garden, the harem:

"Wouldst thou, too, my sweet, be given wings?"

Upon the grass,  
The breeze laughs  
And scatters the petals  
As upon the heads  
Of newlyweds.

***

The End


End file.
